Mammillaria saetigera

Mammillaria saetigera SB 336
SB 336 - galeana - nuevo leon - mexico

What is saetigera?

Well, first the name, Mammillaria saetigera.

This was first documented in 1933 by Boedeker and Tiegel. It was described as being from Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, woolly in the axils, and with 2 central spines, white with brown tips, and 15-20 radial spines also white. The flowers are almost white with a rose-pink mid-stripe. The Style is pink, anthers yellow, and the stigma lobes 4-5 dark yellow.

Hunt in Bradleya 1987 amends the description by adding white hairlike bristles to the wool in the axils, and the flower has become pink with a darker pink mid-stripe. He says that this is one of the M. hahniana group.

Reppenhagen in his 2 volume monograph of 1992 simply has M. saetigera as a synonym of M. hahniana

I don't have access to the original description, so I can only point out that Craig and Hunt have some similarities but some differences, especially about the flower colour.

Now looking at the plant illustrated - one immediate aspect is that it lacks the 15-20 white radial spines, and the two centrals are not white tipped brown. The flower is like that described in Craig, but the stigma is light pink, not dark yellow.

So, I would conclude the Mammillaria sp. SB336 is certainly NOT M. saetigera. To me the plant shown looks closer to M. lloydii or M. formosa ssp. pseudocrucigera than anything else. But the stated distribution of these two species is not in Tamaulipas. My inclination is to ally it with M. formosa, and suggest that it might be an outlying form of the subspecies mentioned.

This subspecies has been suggested to be a link between M. formosa proper and M. sempervivi. Since M. sempervivi grows right up to the Tamaulipas border, and so a population of this "link" might not be so extreme a suggestion.

But what do others think?

I have 4 seed-grown plants of this M. saetigera SB 336 (MG 881), they are about 15 years old. The number of central spines is 2, but sometimes up to 4, the number of radial spines varies; I counted a maximum of 13 radials. In my opinion, SB 336 is no more than a form of M. formosa, which itself is quite variable because it grows over a huge area.
What M. saetigera actually is, I don't know. From Craig's book I get the impression that the flower colour is whitish, as Chris already pointed out. About 10 years ago, Rogozinski wrote a series of articles in the German Mammillaria journal. He recognizes M. saetigera as a real species and puts M. albata and M. woodsii into synonymy. These species grow in the region where M. saetigera was stated to come from. The location 'hacienda Cenca' was mentioned there and Rogozinski equates that to Conca, which lies along the road from Jalpan to Rio Verde. Considering all these doubtful points, it is perhaps the best to discard the name M. saetigera.

Wolter.

I have plants of Rog 574 and Rog 576 both from Guanajuato and clearly "woodsii" type. Also two plants of Rog 101 from Huizache- San Luis Potosi both have very nice white curving centrals and an abundance of wool, and appear to have affinity to albata / geminispina sub. leucocentra. I too believe that the name of saetigera should be dismissed until the real plant with white flowers is found.

Some more thoughts on this question:

A few years ago, I was told that the hairy plant we all know and love as Mammillaria hahniana wasn't related to the plants that we would call its subspecies - i.e. woodsii, bravoe etc. I was told that it is actually more closely related to M. klissingiana, if not just a long haired form of it.

When I expressed my surprise, I was told to look at the size and closeness of the tubercles, and that "Our" M. hahniana has much more densely packed tubercles, just like M. klissingiana.

In Bradleya 2/1984 Hunt describes M. hahniana as having very numerous tubercles, triangular-conic, 5 x 2-3mm. In Bradleya 5/1987, his description of M. saetigera has tubercles that are pyramidal, to 12 x 5-6mm. Both descriptions have hairlike bristles. That is quite a difference, is it significant?

Looking at my two M. hahniana (hairy) plants, the tubercles are a bit slimmer and a bit closer than on my M. hahniana woodsii plants of which I have Rog 574, and Rog 580. Of this last, two older plants do have some axilliary hair, but not much, while the younger plant has none as yet. Rog 574 is mature but has no sign of axillary wool.

But is this enough? Has the really long haired M. hahniana been recollected?

I have several with ML numbers (ML489, ML493, ML496) of which the first two have some hair, but short, and the latter has no hair. Their tubercles are shorter and fatter than on my very hairy plant. I guess the presence of axilliary hair could be a somewhat variable quality, maybe demonstrated by the fact that ML489 comes from Artajea, which is the same location as Rog 574, and one is listed as M. hahniana, the other as hahniana ssp. woodsii. One that is consistent, apart from the names are ML496 as M. hahniana, and Rog 580 as hahniana ssp. woodsii, both from La Florida.

Oh, and one other thing strikes me. I have one very old plant labelled as a white flowered form of M. hahniana. I don't know if it is a "sport" or is found in habitat. It has a little hair as well as lots of wool, and white flowers. Does this come into the equation??

So after all that, I am really no more the wiser!

Rogozinski, in his most recent field list has attached the name M. saetigera to his Rog 101 of El Huizache. He apparently called it M. leucocentra in earlier years. He also found M. formosa at El Huizache (I did too, but I did not find the M.saetigera).
In his 2-volume book, Reppenhagen mentions M. leucocentra and he said that he found it at Santo Domingo, which is not far away from El Huizache. Rogozinski would probably call it M. saetigera. I would prefer the name M. albata for both the Rogo and the Repp plants.
In my opinion, the real M. leucocentra comes from the Barranca de Tolimán, which is also where Ehrenberg thought that he had found it almost 200 years ago. Attached is a photo of this M. leucocentra WTH 850 from the Barranca de Tolimán, which lies near Zimapán. In my opinion, M. leucocentra should not be considered a subspecies of M. geminispina, it differs too much from it.
I have also attached 3 photos from rather hairy plants which I found south of Rio Verde. The first one (WTH 845) is from near El Carrizal, south of Arroyo Seco, the second and third (WTH 955) are from a hill along the Arroyo Seco - Rayón road. My guess is that the plant on the last photo comes quite close to M. hahniana. At both locations there were also less hairy plants. I don't think that these plants have anything to do with M. klissingiana.

Wolter.

 

Hi,
The first photo looks very similar to my plants of Rog 101 and the last photo comes close to a large plant I have which the late Bill Maddams identified as albata, although at the time I was convinced it was hahniana.